


America's Daughter • Bucky Barnes

by nogitsunechey (animechey)



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-30
Updated: 2019-05-01
Packaged: 2020-02-10 09:21:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 4,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18657547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/animechey/pseuds/nogitsunechey
Summary: Set after the events of ‘Avengers: Endgame.’“Your hands are scarred from murder, and yet I trust them completely.”Steve returned the Infinity Stones to their rightful places in the Avengers’ pasts, but he himself also stayed behind and lived a life with Peggy. He grew old and had a life, just like Tony told him he needed to get many a time.The couple had a daughter, Nadia, and she is America’s daughter considering her father has America’s ass and her mother has America’s brains.© Chey Eveleigh | 2019





	1. 00 • Preview

I shake my head and climb to my feet, jaw clenched as I stare into the faded blue eyes of my father’s childhood friend. “I don’t give a fucking damn what you’ve done. I know everything that you’ve done, and I’m not afraid of you!”

The soldier shakes his head and steps away, holding his flesh hand out as I shuffle closer. “You’re Steve’s daughter. I don’t want to hurt you, so just stay away.”

“Why do you think I keep coming back every time you tell me to stay away,  _ James _ ?! I know you won’t hurt me. T’Challa got Hydra’s conditioning out of your head back before everything with Thanos happened, and that means you’re  _ safe _ .”

“I’m not safe to be around. Just go back to Steve, okay?”

I bite back a frustrated scream and throw myself at Bucky, wrapping my arms around his middle and holding him tightly as he fights against me. His left arm doesn’t move, showing that he is more afraid of hurting me than I first thought, and meaning that we still have a long way to go. The older man’s struggles slow to a stop and he sighs, bringing his flesh arm to rest on my back as he hesitantly returns my hug, his head coming to rest on top of mine.

“Your hands are scarred from murder, and yet I trust them completely,” I murmur, making his muscles tense. “Mine are in a similar state to yours, Bucky, and yet you do not fear me as you believe I should fear you. You are Hydra’s former Super Soldier as I am a Super Soldier not just because Steve Rogers’ blood flows through my veins, but because I let S.H.I.E.L.D experiment on me in the nineties.”

“Nadia.”


	2. 01 • A Million Words

𝕟𝕒𝕕𝕚𝕒 𝕣𝕠𝕘𝕖𝕣𝕤

Sitting by a lake on a sunny afternoon with my father beside me and his old shield in its casing beside him is not exactly how I thought I would spend today. However, the appearance of a dark skinned man beside us lets me know that what my father told me of returning the six Infinity Stones to their rightful times in the past is true. Giving the stranger a half smile, I stand and leave the two friends to reunite - ten seconds for the stranger, but almost forty years for my father.

My smile turns real and wide as I see my father’s best friend since childhood standing not too far away, and my mind fills with the stories my father told of his time spent with James Buchanan Barnes, more commonly known as “Bucky” these days. Making my way over to the other Super Soldier, I give him a smile and get one in return, but only a fraction above a tight-lipped one.

I stick out my left hand. “I’m Nadia.”

The man pulls his metal hand from his pocket without thinking and grips my hand. “Bucky, but I have a feeling you already know that.”

Humming in agreement, my other hand comes up to clasp our joined ones. “Of course. My father told me many stories about you when I was growing up; the Howling Commandos during the Second World War, and what Hydra and S.H.I.E.L.D did to you over the decades. I, uh, was never really sure whether to believe it or not, it sounded quite insane as a teenager hearing how your father is some Super Soldier who fought in World War Two, and against aliens, and then travelled back in time to be with the love of his life.”

“I can imagine.” Tension is beginning to exude from Bucky. “It must have been difficult.”

“For a while, but I got around to seeing how it was the truth - photos and all, and how my father has this “magical device” I used to call it that had photos and videos on it of this decade. He ages differently to everyone else and he doesn’t get sick, but neither do I. He thinks it’s because the serum that he got put into him altered his DNA and that it was transferred to me when he and my mum did their thing.”

“You don’t?”

“Just between you and me, James, I let them experiment on me last century, which is why I look like I’m barely 20. They were trying to recreate the serum they used on my father to make more soldiers like him, and they came close before he burnt it all to the ground and took me home. Neither of my parents were overly happy that I let myself be experimented on, but they couldn’t undo what had been done to me.”

Looking over my shoulder at my father and the man I now know is Sam Wilson, a tight-lipped smile spreads on my face as I see the familiar vibranium shield on the dark skinned man’s arm, my father smiling up at his old friend. Bucky follows my gaze and a similar expression crosses his face. It is as if he’s not sure how to feel about this predicament, and I can’t exactly blame him. If it were my decision, I would give the shield to Bucky without a second thought.

“You’re very tense, James,” I muses, looking back over to the soldier and tilting my head as I meet his anxious eyes. “Is it because of this-” I raise our still joined hands. “-or is it something else?”

Bucky physically says nothing, but his eyes say a million words.

“I see. You still don’t trust yourself not to hurt anyone, and it can’t help matters that I’m holding your metal hand. Can it?”

“I guess not.”

“He wants to talk to you,” Sam says with a smile, making me turn to face the man and release Bucky’s hand. “Both of you.”

With a small smile at the dark skinned man, I walk back over to my father and sit beside him, looking back out over the water. Bucky takes a little longer than me, but he’s soon standing beside his best friend with both his hands in the pockets of his black jacket, assassin trained eyes searching for any sign of danger before looking down at my father. I watch with a smile as my father claps his hand on Bucky’s arm and smiles warmly up at him, and it’s then that I see Bucky is both my father’s strength and his weakness; his fatal flaw.

“Sam didn’t take it,” my father says, the right side of his lips quirking up in amusement as he pats the familiar red, white and blue vibranium shield, wedding ring making a  _ clink _ as it hits the metal. “What about you, Buck? Up for the challenge?”

Bucky says nothing, but he stares down at the familiar shield that he’s used on more than one occasion, a sort of wistfulness and nostalgia glimmering in his ice blue eyes.


	3. 02 • Warning Words

𝕟𝕒𝕕𝕚𝕒 𝕣𝕠𝕘𝕖𝕣𝕤

With a small smile on my face, I fall back onto my bed and stare up at the ceiling of my bedroom. Somewhere in the house my father is pottering around, or whatever it is that he does these days instead of being a superhero like he’s meant to be - like he _used_ to be. Ever since my mother died three years ago, my father hasn’t been the same, but I suppose he’s had to lose her three times in over a hundred years and that would have had a profound impact on him.

I moved back in to live with him in my childhood home after she passed, and helped him to get rid of all her clothes and such that were not able to be taken to the hospital with her when she went. After that we got rid of furniture that was never used and turned the small study into a spare room just in case someone needed it in an emergency, and the book shelves were moved to the lounge room after we rearranged it and rid ourselves of the bulky lounge we’d had since the nineties, replacing it with one Pepper gave us from Tony’s office in Stark Tower.

Truth be told, Tony and I grew close over the years I snuck away to see him without my father and mother knowing. At first he didn’t believe me, but DNA doesn’t lie, and neither do I unless it’s absolutely necessary. Once he came around, he helped me learn about technology and such, and I gave him slight warnings about what the future holds for him and the Avengers, which he easily took under consideration and eventually believed me about.

At his funeral, I stood by the trees near the lake and watched as the wreath and his old chest thing that I can never remember the name of floated away. I remember seeing Pepper and their five-year-old daughter by the wooden pier’s edge, and then Peter and Aunt May and Rhodey not too far behind them. Seeing a young version of my father was startling at first, but I grew accustomed to it as time progressed. I saw people there that I’d only heard about in stories, but there were two missing - Natasha and Pietro; two of the people I wanted to see again that day.

“Nadia, come out here for a second,” my father calls, making my thoughts dissipate as I push myself up off my bed and walk to the door. “I want to talk to you about something.”

Pulling the band from my blonde hair, I run my fingers through it as I head to the lounge room near the front of the house where my father is sitting. Plopping onto one of the recliners, I look over at him. “What’s up, dad? Did I do something wrong again?”

“Not this time, but I’m still not happy about that.”

“What’s done is done. So, what do you want to talk to me about?”

He smiles and shakes his head, leaning back on the lounge. “I want to talk to you about Bucky.”

I grin and sit upright. “Of course you do. Going to tell me more stories about him?”

“No, but I am going to warn you about him. Despite T’challa getting rid of Hydra’s brainwashing, Bucky is still unstable, and I don’t want you to get hurt if you plan on… hanging around with him, or whatever it is that you do.”

“I analyse and kill, dad. You should know that after thirty years. I’m not going to hurt James unless he snaps and tries to hurt me first though.”

My father turns serious despite my joking. “Nadia-”

“I’m not afraid of him, dad,” I snap, standing and walking away. Pausing in the doorway, I look back at him over my shoulder. “Why are you _really_ warning me about him? What do you think is going to happen between your _best friend_ of over a hundred years and your _daughter_? He’s 102, and I’m barely past 30.”

“When you put it that way, it sounds worse than it really is.”

“Yeah.”

“Look, I’m just trying to keep you safe. You’re my _daughter_ and I want you to be happy with whoever you choose to be with.”

“But?”

“I saw you the other day with Buck, Nadia, and I know you used to like him when you were younger. You deserve to be happy, and so does he, but, if it’s going to be with you two together, I just want to warn you about how volatile he can be.”

With my father’s warning words swirling around my mind I leave the house, walking into the actual city of New York with no real destination in mind. My eyes are instinctively darting around, checking everything for any sign of danger as I walk by, but there’s never anything there besides the occasional homeless veteran or stray cat. That is, until my eyes catch sight of a man with shoulder-length brunet hair and black clothes.


	4. 03 • Shadowed Words

𝕟𝕒𝕕𝕚𝕒 𝕣𝕠𝕘𝕖𝕣𝕤

My fingers tighten around the hilt of my switchblade inside the pocket of my hoodie and my muscles tense in preparation for a fight. The thumb of my right hand hits the switch and the blade shoots out with a small _schick_ that makes the man in the shadows tense. Instinctively, my feet inch along the concrete as my stance widens and I find myself coming to bounce slightly on the balls of my feet, ready to spring into action if the man in the shadows makes a move.

He steps from the alley and the faint light from the sun behind the clouds lights his relatively young face, revealing features that make me relax slightly. Bright blue eyes watch as my muscles lose their tenseness and my feet return to their previous flat state on the concrete, my shoulders dropping as I let out a slow breath, as if I am letting the tension of my body out through a stream of air.

“You startled me, James,” I tell the man in an almost scolding voice despite my best attempts to withhold the tone. “Give a girl a warning, will you?”

“I didn’t mean to do that, Miss Rogers,” Bucky says in a low voice, making the hair on the back of my neck stand erect as a chill sweeps my body. “I’m sorry.”

“What are you doing in New York? I thought you would have gone back to Wakanda with T’challa and Shuri and everyone else. I mean, even Peter went there for a while before school started back up for him. I really thought you would have gone too.”

“I, uh, thought I’d stay here.”

“Really? What for? I mean, everyone you know is either old or you know…”

“Dead. I know, but Steve’s still here.”

I smile and walk over to the super soldier. “You really do care for my father, don’t you, James? Need I ask about the years you two knew each other before the war?”

A smile works its way onto his face and his blue eyes appear to shine. “You’re reading into our friendship a bit, Miss Rogers.”

“Nadia. Call me Nadia, please.”

“If you say so.”

With a smile on my face, I walk over and link my arm through his before making my way back along the concrete sidewalk. Bucky’s first steps are hesitant, but he quickly becomes accustomed to our situation and matches my above average strides with ease. People stare at us beyond what’s considered polite and the man on my arm attempts to shy away discreetly, but I simply glare fiercely at the onlookers until they look away.

Humming an old Russian lullaby under my breath, we turn the corner and head towards the coffee shop not too far from where Stark Tower stands proud near the heart of the city. A soft smile works its way onto my face as a low, baritone hum coming from Bucky accompanies my higher pitched hum. Whilst it is quite a disturbing lullaby, I find it quite beautiful.

Taking a seat outside the coffee shop after telling them our order and paying, I rest my hands on the table between us, twisting and pulling my fingers in anxiety. Bucky watches me with almost unreadable eyes and I feel like I’m smaller than normal under his penetrating gaze, making me shudder. It makes me wonder whether he remembers me, but then I remember that there are still many things from his past that are hidden from him thanks to Hydra’s brainwashing and repetitive memory wiping.

We sit in silence for a few minutes until our respective drinks are placed in front of us: an extra strength Chai Latte for me, and a normal strength Cappuccino for the super soldier. A hesitant but thankful smile from Bucky and an almost intelligible “thank you” from me and the girl is gone, returning to the building and leaving us two assassins to our own devices. It is then that Bucky leans forward in his seat and makes my eyes snap up as the muscles in my body tense, something I deem amusement sparkling in his eyes at that.

“I’m not going to hurt you, Miss - uh, Nadia,” Bucky assures, a small crease between his eyebrows.

I nod sharply and quickly. “I know you won’t, James. I’m just… I…”

“You usually have words to express how you feel. What’s the matter?”

“It’s just something my father said to me earlier. It’s… put me off a bit.”

“What did Steve say now?”

“Он сказал несколько предупреждений о тебе, если мы когда-нибудь соберемся. Это было действительно странно,” I blurt in Russian. “Потом я обнаружил, что думаю о том, чтобы мы были вместе, и мой разум как бы отключился, потому что это действительно странно Я имею в виду, вам технически больше ста лет и все, а мне едва тридцать. Мол, какого хрена?”

 **["** ** _He said some warning stuff about you for if we ever get together. It, uh, was really weird. Then I found myself thinking about us being together and my mind has kind of shut down because it's really weird. I mean, you're technically over a hundred years old and all, and I'm barely thirty. Like, what the fuck?”_ ** **]**

Bucky gives me a spooked look. “Ты можешь говорить на русском. Как?”

 **[** **"** ** _You can speak Russian. How?”_ ** **]**

“Кто-то особенный научил меня, когда я был очень молод.”

 **[** " ** _Someone special taught me when I was really young.”_ ** **]**


	5. 04 • Truthful Words

𝕟𝕒𝕕𝕚𝕒 𝕣𝕠𝕘𝕖𝕣𝕤

Bucky leans forward and places his hands on the table, the metal of his left hand glinting in the faint sunlight and making a soft smile to grow on my face. Tearing my eyes away from the metal, I meet Bucky’s bright blue eyes and shift in my seat, getting comfortable before giving him an expectant look. His tactics are more than familiar to me; a second nature to those of us in this predicament.

I sip my Chai Latte. “Ты вообще не помнишь, Джеймс?”

 **[** ** _“You don’t remember, do you, James?”_ ** **]**

He says nothing.

“Должен ли я заставить вас вспомнить?”

 **[** ** _“Should I make you remember?”_ ** **]**

His eyebrow twitches, but he still stays silent.

“Тоска. Ржавый. Печь…”

 **[** ** _“Longing. Rusted. Furnace…”_ ** **]**

Despite the words no longer having the power to affect him, Bucky flinches back away from me, eyes dark and wild; like a feral animal caged. “Стоп!”

 **[** ** _“Stop!”_ ** **]**

Placing my mug back on the table, I stare at him with a blank expression, watching as he gathers his wits about him and returns to some semblance of sanity. “Those words cannot control you any longer - bring out the Winter Soldier - and yet you’re still afraid of them. No, you let them control you to some extent.”

“How do you know those words?”

“I know more about you than you think, James, and that means I know about the brainwashing and conditioning, as well as the trigger words that used to make you into a killing machine.”

Bucky raises his mug to his mouth in his shaking flesh hand and I watch as some of his coffee sloshes over the edge. Letting out a sigh I pull my seat in closer to the table and wrap my hands around my mug, taking a small sip before placing back, but not fully releasing the warm ceramic. I pull a napkin from the table and hand it to the former Winter Soldier before I begin to form a coherent story in my head, ready to let it flood past my lips.

I wet my lips and stare down into my coffee as I speak. “My father told me stories of what he did after he got injected with the serum, and I wanted to be just like him, so I ran away from home when I was nine or ten and found a S.H.I.E.L.D, no, a Hydra base somehow. I really don’t know how I did it, but I did. I told them who I was, and they instantly took me inside and began… testing me, I guess you could say. For five or six years they had me, and they experimented on me with a lot of different serums, and they also trained me to be an assassin; a killer - _you_ trained me to be a killer. I’m not sure if you remember that or not-”

Bucky nods sharply. “I remember.”

“Okay. So that makes it easier to tell this story. Anyway, when my father came and got me, you were already back on ice, and I didn’t tell him about you - I still haven’t. It would break him more than losing my mother again; for the third time. God knows what would happen if he found out what _really_ happened at that base all those years ago. I think it would literally kill him to find out all those dark, horrible details about what happened to me at the hands of Hydra.”

“It would. It almost did when he found out about what they did to me.”

“I know. He told me.”

A thought seems to strike Bucky, because he leans forward and stares at me. “I was the one that taught you to speak Russian.”

My lips quirk into a sad smile. “As well as Romanian and German and French and Italian, and even a little Spanish. I finished learning Spanish in school after I came back, so now I’m fluent in it.”

“So I’m “someone special” to you?”

“Заткнись. Тебе не нужно слышать, как я говорю, что ты особенный, чтобы знать, что ты действительно удивительный и особенный, Джеймс.”

 **["** ** _Shut up. You don’t need to hear me say you’re special to know you are truly amazing and special, James.”_ ** **]**

“Ты тоже, Надя. Ты быстро учился и всегда был бдителен.”

 **[** ** _“You are too, Nadia. You were a quick learner, and you stayed vigilant at all times.”_ ** **]**

I shudder. “Hearing my name in Russian after this long still gives me the chills.”

Bucky seems to smirk at me. “Надя.”

 **[** ** _“Nadia.”_ ** **]**

“T’challa may have gotten rid of those trigger words working, but I bet he didn’t get rid of your deactivation trigger word.”

“Wait. Надя.”

 **[** ** _“Nadia.”_ ** **]**

“спут-”

 **[** ** _“Satel-”_ ** **]**

“Надя, cтоп.”

 **[** ** _“Nadia, stop.”_ ** **]**

“Полегче, Джеймс. Я не собираюсь это говорить. Я не такая уж сука.”

 **[** ** _“Easy, James. I'm not going to say it. I’m not that much of a bitch.”_ ** **]**


	6. 05 • Compromising Words

𝕟𝕒𝕕𝕚𝕒 𝕣𝕠𝕘𝕖𝕣𝕤

 **Recurring Russian:** Джеймс - “James”; Надя - “Nadia”; Стив - “Steve”.

It’s been a month and a half since I bared part of my soul to the one person who would understand more than anyone, and we’ve barely spoken since then. My mind is all kinds of chaotic about it, and I feel like I’m about to break down out of pure anxiety, and the flashbacks I’ve been getting recently are beginning to take their toll on my mind.

In turn, that’s impacting on my body. I have barely been eating and my arms are raked up and down with scratch marks from the nightmares that plague my sleep, and I’ve become twitchy and sleep deprived from lack of self-care. It’s not hard to see that what’s happening to me is making my father worry more than what’s good for him.

Random spurts of Russian and German leave my lips and make him worry further, and I have a feeling that he is relatively close to calling Bucky over in order to translate the foreign languages. To be quite honest, I think that might make me slightly worse due to how tightly knit the former Hydra assassin is ingrained in my past. However, it may also help me to some extent, because I would be able to rant in another language without fear of my father knowing the truth.

“Будьте добры, и вы будете вознаграждены,” I breathe, arms curled around the legs pulled up to my chest. “Будьте добры, и вы будете вознаграждены.”

 **[(Russian):** **_“Be good and you’ll be rewarded. Be good and you’ll be rewarded.”_ ** **]**

“Nadia,” my father calls, his hand coming to rest on my arm. “Nadia, look at me.”

I rip my arm away from him and scuttle back into the corner, my breathing rapid. “Ich werde gut sein. Das verspreche ich. Tu mir nicht weh.”

 **[(German):** **_“I’ll be good. I promise. Don’t hurt me.”_ ** **]**

“Shit. I’m calling Bucky.”

“Джеймс. Помоги мне, Джеймс. Пожалуйста.”

 **[(Russian):** **_“James. Help me, James. Please.”_ ** **]**

Phantom pain shooting through my limbs has me whimpering and crying out and making jerky motions as my father calls the one person who could possibly help. My hands fly to my ears as they begin to ring and I cry out a range of expletives and pleads in a jumble of Russian and German, feeling my eyes begin to burn as I squeeze them tightly shut.

 

𝕥𝕙𝕚𝕣𝕕 𝕡𝕖𝕣𝕤𝕠𝕟

Bucky’s hands encompass Nadia’s wrists force them away from her ears. “Надя, посмотри на меня. Надя!”

 **[(Russian):** **_“Nadia, look at me. Nadia!”_ ** **]**

Nadia screams and thrashes in his hold. “Отпусти меня, монстр!”

 **[(Russian):** **_“Let go of me, you monster!”_ ** **]**

“Nadia, calm down. Look at me, маленький боец.”

 **[(Russian):** **_“little fighter”_ ** **]**

“Ich werde gut sein. Das verspreche ich. Tu mir nicht weh.”

 **[(German):** **_“I’ll be good. I promise. Don’t hurt me.”_ ** **]**

The super soldier’s eyes widen in horror and he turns to look at his best friend, making the other super soldier briefly close his eyes before walking out of his daughter’s room, leaving the tormented young girl in the hands of his best friend. Bucky turns his tormented blue eyes to the quivering blonde girl sitting on the floor in front of him and involuntarily tightens his hold on her wrists, making her screech.

“Отпусти меня,” she brokenly pleads, trying to tear herself away from Bucky. “Я не сделал ничего плохого!”

 **[** **(Russian):** **_“Let go of me. I didn’t do anything wrong!”_ ** **]**

Bucky grits his teeth. “Молчать!”

 **[** **(Russian):** **_“Silence!”_ ** **]**

Nadia flinches back against the wall, her eyes flying shut as if expecting a blow, and that makes Bucky himself flinch, knowing how cruel they were to both him and the fighter in front of him. Slowly, her eyes open and she looks up to see him kneeling in front of her with his head bowed, long brunet hair shrouding his face. The grip on her left wrist loosens and Nadia slips her hand free, bringing it to brush the slight beard on Bucky’s face, making him look at her with dull eyes.

“Джеймс.”

 **[** **(Russian):** **_“James.”_ ** **]**

“Надя.”

 **[** **(Russian):** **_“Nadia”_ ** **]**

“Когда ты пришел?”

 **[** **(Russian):** **_“When did you get here?”_ ** **]**

“Пока ты был …”

 **[** **(Russian):** **_“While you were…”_ ** **]**

“Черт возьми перед моим отцом? Дерьмо. Как мой отец?”

 **[** **(Russian):** **_“Freaking the fuck out in front of my father? Shit. How is my father?”_ ** **]**

“Стив в порядке.”

 **[(Russian):** **_“Steve is okay.”_ ** **]**


End file.
